ColorTuesday.xyz: Former HP and Apple developer connects her community through colors in this week’s #WebsiteWednesday

Today’s #WebsiteWednesday is the 3rd instalment of our 4 week series highlighting the winners of .xyz’s 4th-anniversarywebsite building contest. If you missed the previous two winners be sure to go back and read about their awesome sites! This week we’re sitting down with web developer Sasha Tran, an accomplished coder who has cultivated a positive community among her Instagram followers. She created her prize winning site, ColorTuesday.xyz, as a way to grow closer to that audience and use her platform to showcase its members.

ColorTuesday.xyz is an entry form for members of Sasha’s dev community to share a color that resonates with them. Sasha then collects the entries and posts them weekly on her Instagram story with the hashtag #ColorTuesday. She uses her .xyz site to bring her following closer together and leverages her own popularity to support the overall dev community, which is a mission we can definitely get behind.

To get to know more about Sasha, we asked her a bit about her motivations and her history in the dev community.

XYZ: You’ve done a mix of freelance developing and work as a UI developer for HP, Apple, and now Level Studios. Do you have a preference between working for a company or picking up your own independent projects?

Sasha: Both pose different challenges that have their benefits. As a freelancer, I had the opportunity to pick the type of projects I wanted to work on. Many times I would choose projects that I wanted to sharpen my skills on and that I could develop from the ground up. Working at a large company gave me more understanding of the full life cycle of projects that have been around for many years. It gives me an appreciation of the collaboration needed to get a well polished project out the door.

XYZ: You share a lot about the lifestyle behind being a developer on your Instagram page. What to you is the most enjoyable part of coding?

Sasha: I love it when I come up with an idea and can spend a few hours or an afternoon and bring it to life with just a code editor. Of course sometimes it takes longer than that, but it does not feel like work at all. Sometimes sharing that process and lifestyle inspires others to take a step in their journey, which means so much to me.

XYZ: Do you have a story of a particularly difficult or challenging project that you worked on?

Sasha: I think a challenging part of freelancing was with clients that did not know what they wanted. This often resulted in a lot of revisions and unnecessary work. What I learned from these experiences is the importance of managing expectations early on, as well as spending the extra time upfront to really extract the essence of what my client wants and detailing that thoroughly in the scope of work.

XYZ: What inspired you to create #ColorTuesday?

Sasha: Colors make me really happy. I thought one day, “what better way to connect with my followers than to share what I love?” It started as an Instagram story asking people to DM me their favorite colors and I reposted them. The process was very manual in the beginning, with me Photoshopping and then posting colors one by one. Eventually I automated the process by creating the ColorTuesday.xyz website for submissions. I also created a secret admin page to help me generate color palettes from all the submissions.

XYZ: What plans do you have in the future for ColorTuesday.xyz and your community of followers?

Sasha: I have plans to showcase color palettes generated by the community where people can find inspiration. I want to allow users to create and share entire palettes. Oh, and gradients too!

XYZ: Do you have any projects on the horizon that our #GenXYZ readers should be on the lookout for?

Sasha: I’m still at the planning stage for the next project, but it’ll be big! :D Stay tuned.

If you’re part of a close-knit online community, finding new ways to connect with your fellow members and increase the overall image of the community is exciting and rewarding. Like Sasha, you can bring your community closer by creating a unique .xyz domain to help promote your friends and collaborators, and together you’ll amplify your message to a worldwide audience.